4.

5 Find the average vorticity within a cylindrical annulus of inner radius 200 km and outer radius of 400 km if the tangential velocity distribution is given by V=A/r, where A =106 m2s-1 and r is in meters. What is the average vorticity within the inner circle of radius 200 km? Answer

Figure 1. A cylindrical annulus.

We start with calculating the tangential velocities v1 and v2: vtan = 106/r yields: v1 = 5.0 m s-1 and v2 = 2.5 m s-1.

Next we calculate the circulation along the respective perimeters of the circles:
2 r 1

C1 = v1 dl =

5.0 dl = 5.0 2 200 10

0 2 r 2

= 6.28 10 6 m 2 s 1

C 2 = v 2 dl =

2.5 dl = 2.5 2 400 10

0

= 6.28 10 6 m 2 s 1

The circulation of the annulus is then Cannulus = C2 C1 = 0 The average vorticity within the inner circle yields:

C1 6.28 10 6 1 = 2 = = 5 10 5 s 1 3 2 r1 (200 10 )
All vorticity is contained within the inner circle. Actually, all vorticity is concentrated in the very centre of the circle, which implies that the vorticity approaches infinity there. In reality this is not possible and it is for this reason that e.g. within the eye of a tropical cyclone the wind speeds do not decrease linearly on approaching the centre on the cyclone, but the decrease must be a power law of the distance, such that the vorticity within the centre remains finite.